40 TRIANDRIA. 



The seeds of many of the pasture grasses will 

 often germinate in their husks by the successive 

 showers and sunshine of Autumn, and especially those 

 which spring up amidst the crags on the summits of 

 mountains, where the sun has not been sufficiently 

 constant to perfect their seeds. But this plant is not 

 considered as simply viviparous by local and casual 

 circumstances, but from the constitution of its nature \ 

 as its habits and character have been found hitherto, 

 in all altitudes and situations, to be invariably the 

 same. 



Its progress of vegetation is, that in a very early 

 stage, the terminal floret springs out and forms a 

 leader, and in that situation it has three or four 

 stipulae wrapping it up at the base, but in succession 

 the stipulae become elongated, an inch or more, and 

 form leaves to the leader, till all have shot out, ex- 

 cepting the Calyx, which remains unaltered; roots 

 then occasionally spring out, the sprout afterwards 

 drops from the Calyx, becomes rooted in the earth, 

 constituting a separate and independent plant. 



This Grass is indigenous to alpine situations -, it 

 is found in perfection in Scotland, on dry walls, and in 

 the moist crevices of dripping rocks : I have myself 

 gathered it at Lodore water-fall, near Keswick. 



In considering plants according to their natu- 

 ral affinities, Linnaeus divided the vegetable world 

 into nine Casts or Tribes, of which Gramma, or 

 Grasses, is one j and by analogy to the different ranks 

 in society, he fancifully called them the plebeians of 



